Elon Musk Teases Big Cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and the head of Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), wants massive cuts to America’s core safety net programs. 

“Reports don’t mean anything, you’ve got to actually take action,” Musk said in an interview Monday on FOX Business Network, explaining that his goal is to slash up to $700 billion from entitlement programs — essential services and programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and food stamps. 

Since Trump took office, DOGE and Musk have initiated mass firings across the government, while calling for numerous contracts and leases to be terminated. Trump’s hatchet men have also specifically honed in on Social Security. Already, they’ve closed 10 Social Security Administration field offices, with plans to close dozens more, while also eliminating workers who were meant to help seniors access their benefits. Social Security experts and insiders warn these cuts — and the DOGE team’s access to data and operations they don’t understand — threaten the program’s ability to function, and could lead to checks not going out to seniors who rely on them.

Trump and Musk have also repeatedly, falsely suggested that Social Security payments could be going out to dead people who are over 100 years old — or even 300 years old, as Trump claimed in his address to Congress last week. Musk has also asserted, with absolutely no basis, that Social Security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

Musk’s slash-and-burn role in Trump’s administration appears to be generating real blowback: Tesla’s stock has been plunging as vehicle sales decline, activists protest outside the company’s showrooms, and vandals tag Cybertrucks with graffiti and dog feces.

Despite reporting from The Washington Post on Monday suggesting that DOGE officials are starting to worry about bad “PR,” Musk suggested later in the day he could push for big cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and other safety net programs.

Editor’s picks

“The waste and fraud in entitlement spending — most of the federal spending is

entitlements — that’s the big one to eliminate,” he said. “That’s sort of half trillion, maybe $600-700 billion a year.” 

There is no expert on the planet who thinks there is $700 billion worth of annual fraud in America’s safety net programs. Musk at one point in the interview cited a Government Accountability Office report which estimated that the government may lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, but that report covered the whole of the federal government — not just those programs. (The sizable frauds occurring in programs like Medicare and Medicaid are typically carried out by scam businesses, not recipients.)  

Musk’s threat to safety net programs come as Republican lawmakers prepare to slash $880 billion from Medicaid, the government’s health insurance program for the poor, specifically so that Trump can give America’s wealthiest and big corporations another round of tax cuts. 

It’s easy to picture Trump and Musk’s repeated attacks on Social Security, Medicaid, and other safety net programs being a political liability for Republicans in 2026 — especially if Trump’s repeated tariff threats and Musk’s mass firings succeed in tanking the economy.

On Monday, Musk made clear whom he plans to scapegoat if his safety net cuts enrage voters: undocumented immigrants.

He let out a smile as he claimed the supposed $700 billion worth of fraud in entitlement programs is “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants, by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.” (It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, which is why it very rarely happens.)

“This is why the Democrats are so upset about the situation, because they’re losing — if we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants, then they will leave and they will lose voters,” Musk continued. 

Musk, who’s still worth an estimated $320 billion, more than anyone else on the planet, will surely continue to attack the most vulnerable members of our society. But if Musk and DOGE harm the safety net programs that Americans rely on, the public will suffer — and Republicans could very well lose actual voters.